to make: cotton candy hat

I have a well documented love of Inca cotton yarn – it’s a thick slubby cotton yarn with a good amount of stretch (well, for a cotton yarn) and a very soft feel. So I was very pleased to learn that the Woodstock Wool Company makes a hand painted version called Cotton Candy. Yay! This site is in frames (grumble) so to get to the page for the yarn click on the Our Stuff button at the top, then scroll the lower right menu until see the label of the nekkid lady, like you see pictured over there

I was a little afraid that the soft hand of the yarn might be lost in the dying, but it wasn’t. The yarn maintains that soft feel, and none of the springiness was lost either. The colors were brighter than I was expecting too, a very pleasant find. Cotton Candy yarn comes in seven color versions and I don’t think the picture of the baby kimono they have on the site does the yarn justice. This hat was made using Tinker Street.

The pattern uses a tubular (Kitchener Rib) cast on because I’m learning about it. I used the instructions for hte Cross-over for 2×2 Rib on pages 22 and 23 of the Big Book of Knitting. Use a regular cast on at your own risk. This pattern is in two sizes: smaller[larger]. I used #8 needles, a 16″ circular to begin with, two circulars at the start of the decreases, and switched to dpns at the tippy top. I also used some straight #6s for the tubular cast on.

Using your spare yarn cast on 37[43] (you will end up with 72[84] stitches when you’re ready).

Work the tubular cast on for the four rows, do the row making the cross over adjustments then join. This join is the center back point, you won’t lose this since the little tail is there, but I refer to the center back later on. When you start the first row of 2×2 rib you’ll start the join, at the join point you’ll have an extra knit stitch, knit two together here to get rid of that.

Work in 2×2 rib for 24 to 28 rows, err on more rows. I found 34 rows to be about 4 rows too many for the largest head in this house.

Come near to the center back and stop for a second. Now we’re goint to place stitch markers. Find the center back point, and move your attention to the point between two k stitches on the outside (right side? correct side?) of the hat. Place a marker there, count 24[28] stitches over, place a marker, count 24[28] more stitches, place a marker. You should have the hat sectioned off into three equal parts of 24[28] stitches, and each of the markers should fall in the middle of a k rib. Yes? Ok, continue.**

Continue working in round, slip the marker, then ssk, then continue in pattern. You’ll be creating three decrease points.

Work until 6 stiches are left. Yes, six. You might need to switch to dpns to get this far. I always get that Irritation Knitting feeling getting up this far but it’s worth it.

Now, thread the yarn end through the six stitches and pop the tail through to the inside of the hat. You should have a relatively tidy point. Using the tail at the center back point, join the extra little area left from the cast on and tuck the tail into the inside stitches of the hat.

You’re done, and you’re cute!

** You could use k2tog for your decreases instead, but you’ll need to remember to place the marker so that you don’t knit through it, meaning, place the marker somwhere after the k2tog will actually happen so that you would work like this: k2tog, k, slip maker, p, p, etc… I found this too fidly to try to explain, and I kinda like doing ssk, so I used ssk for this pattern. If any of this makes sense to you feel free to make your own modifications.